Showing papers by "Jonathan W. Moore published in 2022"
TL;DR: In this article , a review of forward-looking conservation approaches to enable adaptation and resilience is presented, which includes expanding beyond preservationist approaches by including those that enable and facilitate ecological change.
Abstract: Description Changing the course of Earth’s climate is increasingly urgent, but there is also a concurrent need for proactive stewardship of the adaptive capacity of the rapidly changing biosphere. Adaptation ultimately underpins the resilience of Earth’s complex systems; species, communities, and ecosystems shift and evolve over time. Yet oncoming changes will seriously challenge current natural resource management and conservation efforts. We review forward-looking conservation approaches to enable adaptation and resilience. Key opportunities include expanding beyond preservationist approaches by including those that enable and facilitate ecological change. Conservation should not just focus on climate change losers but also on proactive management of emerging opportunities. Local efforts to conserve biodiversity and generate habitat complexity will also help to maintain a diversity of future options for an unpredictable future.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors present a synthesis of relevant aspects of mining operations, describes the ecology of salmonid-bearing watersheds in northwestern North America and compiles the impacts of metal and coal extraction on salmonids and their habitat.
Abstract: Mining provides resources for people but can pose risks to ecosystems that support cultural keystone species. Our synthesis reviews relevant aspects of mining operations, describes the ecology of salmonid-bearing watersheds in northwestern North America, and compiles the impacts of metal and coal extraction on salmonids and their habitat. We conservatively estimate that this region encompasses nearly 4000 past producing mines, with present-day operations ranging from small placer sites to massive open-pit projects that annually mine more than 118 million metric tons of earth. Despite impact assessments that are intended to evaluate risk and inform mitigation, mines continue to harm salmonid-bearing watersheds via pathways such as toxic contaminants, stream channel burial, and flow regime alteration. To better maintain watershed processes that benefit salmonids, we highlight key windows during the mining governance life cycle for science to guide policy by more accurately accounting for stressor complexity, cumulative effects, and future environmental change.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors used photographs taken by Gwich’in collaborators using a simple, standardized set-up to ask the question: how accurately can weight be estimated from a photo? Using random forest models based on morphometric photograph measurements as well as season and location of harvest, they predicted broad whitefish weight to within 13% of true weight.
Abstract: Many small-scale fisheries are remote in nature, making data collection logistically difficult. Thus, there is a need for accessible solutions that address the data gaps present in these fisheries. One possible solution is to incorporate photography into community- or harvest-based monitoring frameworks and employ these images to estimate biological data. Here we test this approach using łuk dagaii, or broad whitefish, Coregonus nasus (Pallus 1776) in the Gwich’in Settlement Area, a remote region in the Mackenzie River system in Canada’s Northwest Territories. We used photographs taken by Gwich’in collaborators using a simple, standardized set-up to ask the question: how accurately can weight be estimated from a photo? Using random forest models based on morphometric photograph measurements as well as season and location of harvest, we predicted broad whitefish weight to within 13% of true weight (257 g, for fish weighing an average of 2036 g). The model predictions were well distributed in their residuals for most fish, though we discuss biases at low and high weights. Image analysis is a simple, low cost, and accessible method that may contribute to ongoing, community/harvest-based fishery data collection where fish length (measured) and weight (predicted) can be tracked through time.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors focus on reducing bias in scale-based back-calculations and validate proposed improvements using archived scales from a wild population of anadromous steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).
Abstract: Fish length back-calculation from hard structures (e.g., scales, otoliths, spines, etc.) is a commonly used method to reconstruct individual growth rates and sizes at age/stage in the absence of an intensive sampling–resampling timeseries. However, reliable estimates via these methods require the empirical validation of multiple assumptions about the growth of these hard structures. Here, we focus on reducing bias in scale-based back-calculations and validating proposed improvements using archived scales from a wild population of anadromous steelhead trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss). We first describe a series of back-calculation problems and propose solutions that can be integrated into common back-calculation methods. We then compare back-calculation accuracy, precision, and bias between proposed solutions and traditional forms of two back-calculation methods: Fraser–Lee and Body-Proportional. We discovered that the assumption that rapid growth begins immediately after juvenile steelhead pass downstream of the fish fence (300 m upstream of the ocean) was invalid and required a correction factor to prevent overestimating fish length by an average of 14%. The proposed modified methods we described performed better than traditional back-calculation methods. Overall, these findings can improve estimates of fish length from scale-based back-calculations and illustrate the importance of validating key assumptions.